I have been home for over a month and a half now. I have settled, readjusted, and even made major decisions that will move my life forward, but it is hard to break orbit from Japan. I've found myself musing about my year in Japan; sometimes it hits me hard and sometimes it is very subtle, but I find that the memories of the people with whom I connected and the places that I came to love and claim as my own are a bit painful to look upon. I suppose that is a good thing, though. It shows that I left something very real behind. Highway 118, which ran from my town of Daigo all the way to Mito, the capital of Ibaraki, is still imprinted into my mind like I was driving it yesterday. I can close my eyes and picture almost every inch of that hour plus drive. Joanna and Blake's apartments still seem like my homes away from home. If I walked out to my driveway, there should be a tiny black little excuse for a car with a motorcycle sized engine in it.. but it has ALL my stuff in there, including an aerobie for me and Blake to toss around, dodging traffic and trying not to overthrow it into the rice field across the street. Kairakuen is cool and windy, but full of life and fragrance and color, and the people I care about most are walking through it with me. Blake and I haven't slept for over a day and we don't know where we are going to sleep, like many other weekends, but we crash somewhere and make it home before work Monday morning.. always with new stories to tell and memories to keep because we did it together. Fukuroda Falls is roaring and foaming in my memory and I can feel the spray on my face, and there is always a new group seeing it with me. I am the local. I know the ropes. I can show you around. Oarai's sun beach is burning my feet as I run out to the edge of her white sands... but then her giant concrete boulders with four legs are breaking the waves that cool my feet and teach me to surf for the first time. I feel like I should be going back in a week or two with Blake and Joanna, Richard, Jesus, Steven, Elena, and the other ALT's from Mito and Omiya and Hitachi for summer barbeque on the beach and fireworks at night. I have a secret parking spot under the overpass of the highway at Oarai beach. Its one of those places that only the surfers know.. the locals.. the people who belong there. Part of me belongs to Ibaraki, and it always will. Writing this now, I almost wish I was back there now, and not just to visit.
But I'm here, and this is 'home' for now. Ironic, that the city in which I grew up could ever feel less like home than a prefecture of Japan. I may go back some day. I hope I do, and soon. Soon before the memories fade and I can't find my favorite noodle shops and secret turns for the best shortcuts through Mito, or the highway that leads to Oarai beach. But even if I went back now, the turns that lead to the homes of almost all my favorite people would already lead to someone else's apartment. Blake and Joanna are in Texas and California now, and I'm in Georgia. Someone else is living in my apartment, so in a very real way, I guess I don't belong there anymore. Japan has released her claim on me, and I on her. But I hope she remembers me the way I remember her.. with pleasure at the memories and regret that they must remain only that for now. That's what reunions are for.
